Second International Conference on Cognitive Analytics Management held at AUB: “Digital Disruption for Innovative Shared Values”

12/20/2018

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Under the patronage of his Excellency Prime Minister of Lebanon Mr. Saad Hariri, The Suliman S .Olayan School of Business (OSB) at The American University of Beirut (AUB) organized a four day conference entitled “Cognitive Analytics Management": Digital Disruption for Innovative Shared Values.

The opening session started with the Lebanese National Anthem and was attended by Mr. Rashed Fayed representing Prime Minister Saad Hariri; Director General of Equipment and Construction at the Ministry of Telecommunications in Lebanon Naji Andraos representing Minister of Telecommunication Jamal Jarrah; M.P. Nadim Gemayel, Chairman of Information Technology Parliamentary Committee; former deputy Ghinwa Jalloul; Vice Governor of Central Bank, Dr. Saad Andary; Director of Research and Strategic Studies Center at the Lebanese Army, Brigadier General Said El Kozah representing Chief Commander of the Lebanese Army; Major General Mohammed Kheir, Higher Relief Council Chief, the Lebanese Chairman of the Lebanese Transparency Association Badri Meouhi, twenty International and local invited keynote speakers, in Among those who were present from AUB are CAM2018 Chairman and Hunsi Sawwaf Chair, Professor Ibrahim Osman, OSB Dean Dr. Steve Harvey, faculty, staff and students as well as members of the media and concerned people.

Osman was the first to welcome the audience, he said: It is with a great honor and humility that we embrace your visit in our Beautiful Country, the Land of Cedars, where our ancestors created the Alphabet in Byblos (Lebanon) and spread it to enlighten the World. He stated that CAM is a goal-based approach to generate data-driven insights and innovations to make informed decisions and Policy Recommendations in real-time, Contratry to Gut Feeling approach. It is a new relevant and rigorous field emerging demolishes of boundaries among scientific fields to address societal changes through disruption of the traditional way of doing things and reinvents new models to boost productivity, creating new job opportunities, providing pertinent knowledge to augment our human capabilities and competiveness through artificial intelligence in a move toward a sustainable smart and equal opportunity world.

Osman said the digital revolution is a tsunami which is providing us with great opportunities to conduct administrative and public reforms due to the new advances in computing capabilities and better quality data which is the new (increasing but not decreasing) oil of the future.

Here are few opportunities for Lebanon. Our research has contributed to improve the egovernment services in Turkey and generated an estimate of 15 billion dollar to all stakeholders over a 10-year period through the creation of shared values to all stakeholders. Therefore, let us fight corruption through the implementation of Electronic government to deliver government services to citizens, to increase transparency and trust to change loyalty to government for a greater prosperity in the twenty first century.

“Second, Lebanon was ranked among the top four countries in the world in science and mathematics. Let us create for them the eco-system to provide new job opportunities for our Youth through Digital Technology and innovation to stop the Brain Drain. Let us look forward towards high quality creative jobs in demands and NOT look backward towards an old heavy energy sector that is fully automated and do not create as much jobs as the new technology sector! Here I call upon HE Gemayel to implement the Parliamentary decree to introduce technology education at pre-university level to complement our current strength being ranked 4th among in the world in Science and Mathematics to fill the technology gaps and earn millions of jobs abundant in the top 10 top emerging jobs in data analytics, artificial intelligence, block chain, and machine learning by 2022.:

He ended: Let us embrace the digital disruption, it is no longer an option for us, either to be “digital or not be", we should not have a fear of failure. Even Winston Churchill said, “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm", and the Tunisian Poet Abou ElQasem El Chabi said, “whoever fears climbing mountains, lives forever among the holes".

For his part, Dean Harvey welcomed everyone to this conference at OSB and thanked the conference chair and the international speakers. He also focused on the importance of this conference and how it feeds into the mission of the business school enabling research, learning and knowledge transfer.

The last speech at the opening session was given by Mr. Rashed Fayed who said: H.E. P.M. Mr. Saad Hariri wanted to be here with us today as it is one of his interests to stay up-to-date with the new technological and scientific developments. Lebanon is one of the first countries that wanted to enable the electronic government, but unfortunately the political disagreements can sometimes put an end to some beneficial ideas for the country.

“The Lebanese people are known for their creativity and hard work. And Mr. Saad Hariri is very passionate about the development of the country. Hence, this topic is very important to him personally and to all the Lebanese people. I believe that the more technology can interfere in the relationship between the government and the citizen, the more we are able to salvage the country and cure it from the many forms of corruption, bribery and downfall it is exposed to", he concluded.

The conference continued for four days and witnessed a lot of panels, roundtables and recommendations. It is an exemplary successful partnership between governments, private sector and civil society to bring awareness about the state of the art development in theory and applications of Digital Disruption to address 150 registered participants from UK, Italy, France, Denmark, Norway, Morocco, King SA, Iraq, Qatar, UAE, Jordan and Lebanon. Shields of appreciations were presented to representatives of his Excellency H.E. Saad Hariri and H.E. Jamal Jarrah; to our Diamond sponsor “Alfa Mobile Company", The Silver Sponsor “The Central Bank (BDL), and to the Speaker Sponsors - the Center National Council for Scientific Research (CNRS); and the Center for Applied Mathematics at AUB and to the chairmen and invited speakers of the four panels namely,

he conference closed on Saturday after completion of academic presentations of 44 papers covering various topics in eight panels on: Digital Transformation for Value Creation; Block Chain, Cloud Computing & Social Media technologies; Analytics in Logistics and Operations; Artificial Intelligence for Knowledge Creation, Analytics in Medical & Health Care and Technology Change and Performance in Organizations. During which an announcement was made on the launch to the Cognitive Analytics Association in Lebanon.